This year marked the first time in the history of our family that we took an actual family vacation. It was the first (and possibly only) time that we all went somewhere together (since the arrival of the youngest two), and the first time we went somewhere just to go somewhere. No loving relatives waiting on the other end, no friends from the past or present. We packed up the vehicles and drove to Philadelphia.
The drive up was relatively uneventful, just a couple missed exits over a six hour drive is not bad compared to some of our trips. One strong word of warning for anyone taking exit 22 from I-95 North trying to get to Christopher Columbus Boulevard, watch what lane you are in and what you are doing or you will unexpectedly find yourself in lovely Camden, New Jersey by way of the Ben Franklin Bridge and paying a $3 toll to get back into Philly.
Next word of advice, try to become somewhat familiar with public transportation of the city before you arrive. Having a working knowledge of the SEPTA would have saved many blocks of unnecessary walking through some interesting neighborhoods.
The "King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit at the Franklin Institute was somewhat of a let down for me. I have honestly been waiting more than thirty years to see Tut. I remember reading about it in National Geographic when it was here way back in the 70's and when I heard it would be back I wanted to see it (or possible wait until I am in my late sixties or travel to Mitzrayim to see it). This was not the exact exhibit that toured the US back then, but many pieces were very interesting. Don't get me wrong it was a great exhibit with many beautiful pieces, but much like my experience of waiting sixteen years between "Return of the Jedi" and "Phantom Menace" nothing could live up to my expectations.
I was surprised to see a stone carving of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (aka Akhenaten) and family praising the sun disc of Aten. It was amazing how clean the cuts and polished the stone appeared. I had seen photographs of this carving in the past while reading about the history of monotheism and the theories of a connection between Amenhotep and Moshe, but to see up close something I had seen on History channel was pretty cool. The radically different style of representing faces of statues during the Amenhotep period was also very interesting.
One thing I didn't enjoy, and I'm not sure if this is a common practice a big exhibits, was that the tour dumped out into the King Tut/Egypt Gift shop. A lovely little place packed full of people buying stuffed mini-pharaohs and getting their names in hieroglyphics engraved on gold fobs. You could also purchase a replica of Dr. Zahi Hawass' field hat for forty-five bucks, but I decided to pass. All-in-all I enjoyed the exhibit and thought it was very interesting. Our oldest (One-of-Five) was very interested as he has had a significant interest in archeology for the past decade or so.
We stopped in Logan Square (or Logan Circle, depending on who you ask) and let the kids play around the Swann fountain as we adults took the opportunity to sit on the benches and rest our feet. As we continued back towards our hotel my son noticed flags lining the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and then noticed what appeared to be the flags of the U.S., Israel, and Mexico flying in front of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul. I was unable to ascertain the purpose of flying those three particular flags there (if anyone knows, let me know). I saw the Holocaust memorial and realized that I was standing in the exact same spot that I was standing exactly seven years earlier when I first visited Philly for Fleet Week 2000.
Day two involved the standard tourist view of Philly. We parked close to the Historic district and walked to Independence Hall. During our tour of which we had a bit of an incident. As we were touring the Hall, the twins started to become a little unruly. I took one and worked my way to the back of the crowd and the wife was getting the other twin and following. During this one of the other guests approached us and asked if we could leave "for the rest of us". What irked me the most about this was that we were already leaving. Goodness gracious it must have taken real courage to approach the people already leaving and ask them to leave. I wonder if it made him feel like a hero when he walked back to his wife a say, "Yeah I got them to leave"? In any event I was already frustrated, had a three year old crawling up my head with claws fully extended and really didn't have time to deal with another moron. I made eye contact and said something like, "Yeah, buddy we're looking for a way out now, so back off" in a very grouchy tone (and possibly including more profanity and at a little higher volume than I would normally deem appropriate for the situation).
The rest of Day Two went without too much incident. I would recommend if you ever visit a city that provides Ride the Duck tours, take the tour. We were able to close out our trip back taking a fun-filled ride through the city's historic district. The tour guide pointed out many sites throughout the area that we had completely missed on our walking through the city.
Well I'm sure that many things from our trip were left out, but I haven't posted in a long while and it took a couple days just to type all of this up.
The drive up was relatively uneventful, just a couple missed exits over a six hour drive is not bad compared to some of our trips. One strong word of warning for anyone taking exit 22 from I-95 North trying to get to Christopher Columbus Boulevard, watch what lane you are in and what you are doing or you will unexpectedly find yourself in lovely Camden, New Jersey by way of the Ben Franklin Bridge and paying a $3 toll to get back into Philly.
Next word of advice, try to become somewhat familiar with public transportation of the city before you arrive. Having a working knowledge of the SEPTA would have saved many blocks of unnecessary walking through some interesting neighborhoods.
The "King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit at the Franklin Institute was somewhat of a let down for me. I have honestly been waiting more than thirty years to see Tut. I remember reading about it in National Geographic when it was here way back in the 70's and when I heard it would be back I wanted to see it (or possible wait until I am in my late sixties or travel to Mitzrayim to see it). This was not the exact exhibit that toured the US back then, but many pieces were very interesting. Don't get me wrong it was a great exhibit with many beautiful pieces, but much like my experience of waiting sixteen years between "Return of the Jedi" and "Phantom Menace" nothing could live up to my expectations.
I was surprised to see a stone carving of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (aka Akhenaten) and family praising the sun disc of Aten. It was amazing how clean the cuts and polished the stone appeared. I had seen photographs of this carving in the past while reading about the history of monotheism and the theories of a connection between Amenhotep and Moshe, but to see up close something I had seen on History channel was pretty cool. The radically different style of representing faces of statues during the Amenhotep period was also very interesting.
One thing I didn't enjoy, and I'm not sure if this is a common practice a big exhibits, was that the tour dumped out into the King Tut/Egypt Gift shop. A lovely little place packed full of people buying stuffed mini-pharaohs and getting their names in hieroglyphics engraved on gold fobs. You could also purchase a replica of Dr. Zahi Hawass' field hat for forty-five bucks, but I decided to pass. All-in-all I enjoyed the exhibit and thought it was very interesting. Our oldest (One-of-Five) was very interested as he has had a significant interest in archeology for the past decade or so.
We stopped in Logan Square (or Logan Circle, depending on who you ask) and let the kids play around the Swann fountain as we adults took the opportunity to sit on the benches and rest our feet. As we continued back towards our hotel my son noticed flags lining the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and then noticed what appeared to be the flags of the U.S., Israel, and Mexico flying in front of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul. I was unable to ascertain the purpose of flying those three particular flags there (if anyone knows, let me know). I saw the Holocaust memorial and realized that I was standing in the exact same spot that I was standing exactly seven years earlier when I first visited Philly for Fleet Week 2000.
Day two involved the standard tourist view of Philly. We parked close to the Historic district and walked to Independence Hall. During our tour of which we had a bit of an incident. As we were touring the Hall, the twins started to become a little unruly. I took one and worked my way to the back of the crowd and the wife was getting the other twin and following. During this one of the other guests approached us and asked if we could leave "for the rest of us". What irked me the most about this was that we were already leaving. Goodness gracious it must have taken real courage to approach the people already leaving and ask them to leave. I wonder if it made him feel like a hero when he walked back to his wife a say, "Yeah I got them to leave"? In any event I was already frustrated, had a three year old crawling up my head with claws fully extended and really didn't have time to deal with another moron. I made eye contact and said something like, "Yeah, buddy we're looking for a way out now, so back off" in a very grouchy tone (and possibly including more profanity and at a little higher volume than I would normally deem appropriate for the situation).
The rest of Day Two went without too much incident. I would recommend if you ever visit a city that provides Ride the Duck tours, take the tour. We were able to close out our trip back taking a fun-filled ride through the city's historic district. The tour guide pointed out many sites throughout the area that we had completely missed on our walking through the city.
Well I'm sure that many things from our trip were left out, but I haven't posted in a long while and it took a couple days just to type all of this up.
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